Republican-led states start warming up to health care law

White House extends deadline until Dec. 14

Nov. 15, 2012

Written by

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Associated Press

Wisconsin’s decision

Gov. Scott Walker planned to announce this morning whether Wisconsin will move forward with implementing a health insurance exchange or defer to the federal government. Walker has been a staunch opponent of the law, halting implementation last year in the hopes that it would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court or Republicans would win in November and do away with the law. Neither happened. Numerous health care and business groups, insurers and others are pressuring Walker to have the state run the exchange. It is unclear if the White House’s month extension will affect today’s announcement.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

WASHINGTON — From the South to the heartland, cracks are appearing in the once-solid wall of Republican resistance to President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Ahead of a federal deadline Friday for states to declare their intentions, Associated Press reporters interviewed governors and state officials around the country, finding surprising openness to the changes in some cases. Opposition persists in others, and there is a widespread, urgent desire for answers on key unresolved details.

Thursday evening, the Obama administration granted states a month’s extension, until Dec. 14. A check by the AP found that 16 states remain in the undecided column.

The law that Republicans have derided as “Obamacare” was devised in Washington, but it’s in the states that Americans will find out if it works, delivering promised coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.

States have a major role to play in two of the overhaul’s main components: new online insurance markets for individuals and small businesses to shop for subsidized private coverage, and an expanded Medicaid program for low-income people.

States must declare if they’ll build the new insurance markets, called exchanges, or let Washington do it for them. States can also opt for a partnership with the feds to run their exchanges, and they have until February to decide on that option.

Some glimpses of grudging acceptance across a shifting scene:

• One of the most visible opponents of Obama’s overhaul, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, now says “if I can get to ‘yes,’ I want to get to ‘yes.’”

Florida was a leader in the failed effort to overturn the law in the Supreme Court, and a group formed by Scott ran TV ads opposing it before it passed Congress. But the governor told the AP this week he wants to negotiate with the federal government to try to help the nearly 4 million uninsured people in his state.

• In Iowa, GOP Gov. Terry Branstad says he is postponing a decision because Washington has not provided enough information about key details. But his spokesman, Tim Albrecht, said Iowa is exploring a partnership exchange that could include several states. Albrecht said they’re confident they can get to a state option if needed.

Ohio, like Florida and Iowa a state Obama carried in the election, is leaning toward a partnership with the federal government despite GOP officials’ continued misgivings about the law.

Chaney, too, says he wishes the law could be repealed, but he worries that “if you default to the federal government, you forever give the keys to the state’s health insurance market to the federal government.”

As for trying to fight the feds, Chaney observed: “We tried that 150 years ago in the South, and it doesn’t work.”

Although the public remains divided about the health care law, the idea of states running the new insurance markets is popular, especially with Republicans and political independents.